Where the Good Things Grow
by HecateA
Summary: When Ted Tonks died, he left behind a wife, a daughter, a son-in-law, an unborn grandson, and a garden. They don't know how yet, but they'll each have a role in putting each other back together. Oneshot.


**Author's Note: **Enjoy!

**Disclaimer: **The following characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and this story derives from her original works, storylines, and world. Please do not sue me, I can barely pay tuition.

**Warnings: **Loss of a parent; grief

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**Stacked with: **MC4A; Shipping War; Animal Verses; Ornate Oscillating Obelisks; Remains of War; Tasty Yandras

**Individual Challenge(s): **Bloomin' Time; Gryffindor MC; Hufflepuff MC; Slytherin MC; Bow Before the Blacks; Spring Rain; Seeds; Tissue Warning; Golden Times; Old Shoes; Themes and Things A (Nature); Themes and Things B (Loss); Themes and Things C (Blanket); True Colours; Rian-Russo Inversion

**Representation(s): **Remus Lupin; loss of a parent; Wizarding War; time off work

**Bonus challenge(s):** Sláinte; Creature Feature; Second Verse (Odd Feathers); Chorus (Middle Name)

**Tertiary bonus challenge: **Olivine; Orator

**List (Prompt): **Hamilton Soundtrack (It's Quiet Uptown)

**Word Count: **1561

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_**Shipping Wars**_

**Ship (Team): **Nymphadora Tonks/Remus Lupin (Technicolour Moon)

**List (Prompt): **Summer Micro 2 (Garden)

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**Where the Good Things Grow**

_They are standing in the garden_

_Alexander by Eliza's side_

_She takes his hand._

-It's Quiet Uptown, Lin-Manuel Miranda

If Andromeda wanted to keep herself busy, then Remus was going to stand at her side and dry all the dishes she mechanically washed. She'd dumped everything back into the sink once already, declaring that they weren't clean enough and needed redoing. Remus hadn't wanted to contradict her, or offer to use magic, so he'd just nodded and had kept drying along.

The kitchen window overlooked the impressive and quite sizeable backyard of the Tonks' house. Even if it was only early spring, Andromeda had already started getting the garden back in order. She'd been keeping the birdfeeders full all winter for the sparrows to pluck at, and now she'd started upkeeping the bird bath too. She's pruned the gooseberries, had already planted tomatoes since the last frost was so early, and had started on some leeks too. She'd raked off any dead leaves and vines loitering the ground, trimmed the lawn, and unmucked the little pond that drew bullfrogs and dragonflies in the summer.

Andromeda had fussed about the garden all winter, saying that Ted's domain should look just the same as he'd left it when he returned. No Wizarding War was going to cost him the community gardening awards he won every summer—and she'd sworn that she wouldn't even use magic. He'd admired his mother-in-law's determination when she'd told them all of this as early as November, after asking Remus if he had any books on Herbology that she could borrow to study up and see what she was doing. He'd taken her to the Muggle library ten minutes away to look at Muggle gardening books for the non-magical plants in the garden, and she'd become a frequent patron there too—taking dutiful notes on what to do when, what to plant when, how to prepare for every month... Seeing her so defeated, hands dunking in and out of the soapy water, now that her husband wouldn't be coming back… It was hard. Nearly as hard as watching Dora puzzle through this.

"For heaven's sake, I _told her,_" Andromeda snapped, pulling Remus back to reality. She dried her hands on the tea towel thrown over her shoulder. "That girl will catch her _death _out there…"

Remus sprung into action. Dora and Andromeda had been clashing more and more recently, whenever their griefs came into orbit and bounced off of one another. Where Andromeda wanted to fuss and take care of someone (anyone—_anything_), Dora wanted peace and quiet and space. She'd been sitting in the garden for nearly an hour now, but apparently Andromeda had just noticed.

"She just wants alone time," he said, putting down the salad bowl he'd been drying. "I'll go bring her a blanket—one of the warm ones by the parlour."

Andromeda humphed. However, Remus had to assume that the offer was agreeable to his mother-in-law, because she went back to the dishes.

"I'll be back to finish drying," he promised her. She nodded and he gave her a second to add something before making his way out of the kitchen.

He stopped by the living room and picked up a blue and purple quilt that Dora liked to nap in, whenever they came to spend the day at the Tonks' house. He slipped outside of the house and followed the little pathway to where Dora was sitting, on a bench under two bare apple trees.

"Love," he called out quietly. Dora looked up and forced a smile when she saw him. Her hair was that mousy brown colour that he didn't dislike, but associated with her unhappiness. She'd tied it back in a thick, loose braid and was wearing one of the long skirts and a blue hand-me-down sweater from Molly that she'd been wearing for the last few months of the pregnancy.

Her maternity leave had only been due to start in a few weeks, but as soon as Ted had passed away she'd begged her Healer for a note relieving her of duty. Luckily, Ted had been well-liked as a Healer in St. Mungo's and she got the note, thus securing her time off to "relax" and "prepare for the birth of her first child," as the pink slip of paper had read. They were in the impossible position where to mourn Ted Tonks would be treason given his blood status, but to go on as if he hadn't been killed was unthinkable.

"Here," he said, draping the blanket around her shoulders. "I know you're sitting in the sun, but just in case."

"Thank you," she said. "Does Mum need help with anything in there?"

"We were just finishing dishes, don't you worry," he said, kissing her forehead. He sat next to her and wrapped an arm around her. When she didn't respond to her touch, he pulled his arm back.

"What about you?" he asked. "Do you need anything?"

She shook her head. "I'm just thinking of how the hellebores are starting to bloom."

"What's that?" he asked.

She pointed to a batch of white flowers with fuzzy yellow centers, growing in bunched. They'd been planted in a shady spot of the garden along the house.

"Hellebores," she repeated. "They were the flowers Mum had at her wedding. The first thing Dad planted out here when they bought the house, apparently."

She took a deep breath.

"He used to… when they'd start coming back to life, he'd pop a bottle of champagne and say that spring had officially sprung," she said. "He used to even give me a sip without Mum knowing, telling me it was our secret. He'd make a big deal out of it every year. It was really silly, but he loved those stupid flowers."

Remus put a hand on hers. She took a deep breath.

"It doesn't feel right that all the good things are going to keep growing here without him," she said, shaking her head. Her other hand rested on her belly bump. "God, Remus, he was _so close _to meeting his grandchild… And I keep wondering if he was killed by someone I spent years working in an office with, because that's the kind of world we're in, and I keep wondering if it hurt or if it happened fast and…"

He let her cry when her resolve broke, but not on her own. He pulled her against him, bundling her up in the quilt even tighter for the time it took until the tears slowed into shaky breathing.

He kissed the top of her hair.

"I keep crying on you," she said quietly.

"That's okay," Remus said. "That's what I'm here for."

She took another deep breath.

"This is petty and spiteful of me… but I've been sitting here for over an hour, trying to figure out if it'd be worst for the garden to keep going as if he's not gone, or worst for it to die," Dora said, leaning her head against his shoulder. "I think the latter. Enough has been lost."

"We can help your mum maintain it over the summer," Remus promised. "We'll have our hands full, but we'll make the time for that."

Dora laughed a bit. Her fingertips traced circles over the baby bump. She said that that was the motion that drew the most kicks out of the baby.

"How did you manage after your mum passed?" Dora asked.

"I didn't, really," Remus admitted. "It was just after Lily and James died, when Sirius was imprisoned and Peter disappeared. I was rather alone."

"I'm thankful that I'm not," Dora said, resting her head on his shoulder. He wrapped an arm around her and she snuggled closer.

He rested his head against hers too.

"It'll take time," he said. "And I can't promise that everything will always be better—nothing can do that. But I'll be here… I know that doing things that made me feel as if I was remembering my mum properly, doing things as she'd want them done, or for her… that helped me too."

"Yeah," Dora said. "We'll… we'll be okay, we'll get better. Dad would want that. He said so before he left, that if anything happened to him he'd had a good life and wanted Mum and I to have the same."

"You gave him that," Remus said. "That's something to be proud of."

"I guess," Dora said quietly. "And that's just what he was like, too, what he lived by. He worked hard for every spring to mean something, and all. That's why we have this garden. I just wish we had something more… permanent."

Remus chewed his lip.

"We could name the baby Edward, if it's a boy," Remus finally said.

Dora pulled away and looked at him.

"Only if you want," Remus said. "By no means do we have to. But if you want to keep him alive that way, if you want to celebrate his life with life…"

"Edward Lupin," Dora interrupted. Her voice was quiet as she tested it out. She looked around the garden. "Edward Lupin… That's a big name for a tiny thing. Do you reckon Teddy would work?"

"I think Teddy would be wonderful," Remus said, kissing her ear. His hand rested on the hand she had resting over her baby bump. "To Ted and Teddy, then."


End file.
